Group 5

Semantic Presented by:

Hanaul Mubarokah
Shofi Nisa
Aulia Saharani
Sanayatul Farhah
 Group 5
Semantic Presented by:
Hanaul Mubarokah
Shofi Nisa
Aulia Saharani
Sanayatul Farhah
Sentence Semantics
situation
What do you guys think about that?
In this chapter we will look at a number of semantic
categories which, like tense, belong at the sentence
level and which can be seen as ways that languages
allow speakers to construct different views of
situations. We will learn how languages allow
speakers to classify situations by using semantic
distinctions of situation type, tense, and aspect.
how the system of mood allows speakers to adopt
differing attitudes toward the factuality of their
sentences; and how evidentiality systems allow
them to identify the source of their belief. Each of
these are sentence-level semantic systems which
enable speakers to organize descriptions of
situations.
Classifying situation
We can identify three important dimensions to the task
of classifying a situation in order to talk about it. These
dimensions are situation type, tense, and aspect On the
situatios we have two types, dynamic and statis.

Robert grew very quickly

These sentences describe dynamic situations. They

imply that the action has subparts: Robert passed
through several sizes.
This distinction between static and dynamic situations is
reflected in the choice of lexical items. In English, for
example, adjectives are typically used for states and
verbs for dynamic situations

number of stative verbs like be, have, remain, know, love

that can be used to describe states, for example:

You know the answer

I have brown hair

We will say that adjectives and stative verbs are inherently

static, that is, it is part of their lexical semantics to portray
a static situation type.
 Verbs and situasion types
1. Stative Verbs
We have already briefly mentioned the dimension
of tense. As we will describe many languages have
grammatical forms, such as verb endings, which
allow a speaker to locate a situation in time relative
to the “now” of the act of speaking or writing.
Aspect is also a grammatical system relating to
time, but here the speaker may choose how to
describe the internal temporal nature of a situation.

Example: Mary loved to drive sports cars

 2. Dynamic Verbs
Dynamic verbs can be classified into a number of types,
based on the semantic distinctions durative/punctual and
telic/atelic, which we will discuss below. The first distinction
is between durative and punctual: durative is applied to
verbs that describe a situation or process which lasts for a
period of time, while punctual describes an event that
seems so instantaneous that it involves virtually no time.

Example: John caughed.

What matters of course is not how much time an actual cough

takes but that the typical cough is so short that conventionally
speakers do not focus on the internal structure of the event.
 Tense and aspect
We have already briefly mentioned the dimension
of tense. As we will describe many languages have
grammatical forms, such as verb endings, which
allow a speaker to locate a situation in time relative
to the “now” of the act of speaking or writing.
Aspect is also a grammatical system relating to
time, but here the speaker may choose how to
describe the internal temporal nature of a situation.
 A SYSTEM OF
SITUATION TYPES
Speakers use their knowledge of these semantic distinctions –
stative/dynamic,
durative/punctual, telic/atelic – to draw distinctions of situation
type. Four kinds of situations
has identified, together with some English verbs and verb phrases
exemplifying each type (Vendler 1967: 97–121):
a. States
desire, want, love, hate, know, believe
b. Activities (unbounded processes)
run, walk, swim, push a cart, drive a car
c. Accomplishments (bounded processes)
run a mile, draw a circle, walk to school, paint a picture, grow up, deliver a
sermon, recover from illness
d. Achievements (point events)
recognize, find, stop, start, reach the top, win the race, spot someone
5.2.3 A system of situation types
Speakers use their knowledge of these semantic distinctions –
stative/dynamic,
durative/punctual, telic/atelic – to draw distinctions of situation
type.
Four kinds of situations identified, together with some English verbs
and verb phrases exemplifying each
type (Vendler 1967: 97–121):

a. States
desire, want, love, hate, know, believe
amith (1991), building on Vendler’s system, adds the situation type :
Examples of each situation type, as follows:
1. She hated ice cream. (State)
2.Your cat watched those birds. (Activity)
3.Her boss learned Japanese. (Accomplishment)
4.The gate banged. (Semelfactive)
5.The cease-fire began at noon yesterday. (Achievement)
 TESTS FOR
SITUATION TYPES
The semantic characteristics of the situation types
we have described permit the use
of certain tests or diagnostics to help decide which
type a clause belongs to.
Examples of each situation type, as follows:
1. She hated ice cream. (State)
2.Your cat watched those birds. (Activity)
3.Her boss learned Japanese. (Accomplishment)
4.The gate banged. (Semelfactive)
5.The cease-fire began at noon yesterday. (Achievement)
STATIVE

The progressive verb form,

Imperative verb form
Simple present verb forms can be used as a test since they
refer to the current
time of speaking with statives but have a habitual reading
with non-statives
DURATIVES

Dowty (1979) suggests using different types of temporal

adverbial expressions as tests for activity, accomplishment,
and achievement situation types. These tests work best using
sentences with simple past tense forms. The temporal
adverbial "in" (a period) only occurs with telic situation types,
and the adverb "almost".
 TENSE
Tense and aspect systems both allow speakers to relate
situations to time, but they
offer different slants on time. Tense allows a speaker to locate
a situation relative to
time of speaking. Some reference point in time, most likely the
Tense is said to be a deictic system, since the reference point
for the system is usually the act of speaking. Sometimes in
English
this information is given by a temporal adverb.
ASPECTS

Aspect systems allow speakers to relate situations and time, but instead of
fixing situations in time relative to the act of speaking, like tense does,
aspect allows speakers to view an event in various ways: as complete, or
incomplete, as so short as to involve almost no time, as something
stretched over a perceptible period, or as something repeated over a period.
As Charles Hockett (1958: 237) describes it:
Aspects have to do, not with the location of an event in time, but with its
temporal distribution or contour.
 Comparing aspect
across language
according to C. S. Smith (1991), views on perfection
and imperfection include looking at a situation from
the outside without paying attention to its internal
temporal structure (perfection), or focusing on the
middle phase of the situation and leaving the ending
undetermined (imperfection).
Example
• John was building a fire
escape.
• John built a fire escape.
we can identify the simple past verb form built in the
second example, as an English representative of the
perfective aspect, with was building in the first example
representing the imperfect. As we have seen,
perfection focuses on the end point of a situation while
imperfection does not, resulting in a distinction
between complete and incomplete actions.
COMBINING SITUATION TYPE AND
ASPECT
in language use, types of situations and aspects
interact with each other. Certain verb forms,
such as the progressive, can be used in some
types of situations but not in others. The options
for describing situations in language are limited
by the natural combination of situation type,
aspect, and tense. The difficulty is that the
language combination is very specific.
 1. A. She blinked her eves.
B. She was blinking her eyes,
2. a. The ship moved.
b. The ship was moving

sentence b has clarity that is missing from

sentence a. Additionally, 1.B has a
connotation of intentional behavior that is
missing from 1.A and in 2.B the description of
movement is clearer than in 2.A due to the
progressive focus on successive internal
phases.
 5.3 Modality and
Evidentiality

modality Evidentiality

a cover term for devices which Evidentiality is a concept in

allow speakers to express semantics that indicates the
varying degrees of commitment exact source or basis of
to, or belief in, a proposition. information that supports the
truth of a statement.
A third strategy we find in English is to employ auxiliary verbs:
These modal verbs have other functions. The examples so far
have been of epistemic modality, so called because the speaker
is signaling degrees of knowledge. A second major use is to
signal deontic modality, where the verbs mark the speaker’s
attitude to social factors of obligation, responsibility and
permission.

She has left by now

a. She must have left by now.
b. She might have left by now
 EXAMPLE OF MODALITY

Epistemic Modality: Deontic Modality:

Belief: Obligation:
"I'm sure he'll come." "You must study hard."
"That must be true." "It is obligatory for everyone
Possibility: to obey the rules."
"He might be busy." Prohibition:
"It could be that he forgot." "Don't forget to lock the
Doubt: door."
"Maybe he doesn't know." "No smoking here."
"I'm not sure if he can do it."
 5.3.2 Mood
Mood refers to the speaker's mood, feeling, or attitude contained in a
sentence, used for wishes, beliefs, exhortations, commands and so on.

Modality distinctions in English being marked by various means including

adverbs and modal verbs. When such distinctions are marked by verb
endings that form distinct conjugations, there is a grammatical tradition
of calling these moods. Thus the distinction in the Ngiyambaa verb in
5.151 would be described as a distinction between a realis mood and an
irrealis mood. In the verbal inflection of the Cushitic language Somali we
find, in addition to the basic indicative mood in 5.151, a conditional mood,
as in 5.15
 5.151 Wuu sameeyey. he make.PAST
“He made it.”
5.152 Wuu sameyn lahaa. he make.INFINITIVE have
“He would make it, he would have made it.”

A more familiar example of mood is the subjunctive

mood found in many European languages. The label
subjunctive is applied somewhat differently in different
languages, but we can identify two opposite poles of
use, with an area of mixing and overlap between them.
 5.3.3 Evidentiality
Allows a speaker to communicate her attitude to the source of their
information.
This is possible in English of course by the use of a separate clause or by
parenthetic adverbials.
These qualifications allow the speaker to say whether the statement relies on
personal first-hand knowledge, or was acquired from another source; and if
the latter, perhaps to say something of the source.

First-hand experience:
"I heard it myself."
Other people's testimonies:
"According to the news, he's dead."
Reasoning:
"He must have been busy, because he
didn't reply to my message."
Premonition:
"I feel like he's coming."
 Conclusion
aspects of sentence meaning that allow speakers to classify
situations, including situation type categories such as
static/dynamic, durative/punctual, and telic/atelic. The tense
and aspect categories interact with situation type to relate the
situation to time and describe its internal temporal form. In
addition, discussion also includes the semantic categories of
modality and evidence, which allow speakers to take a stance
toward a proposition by reflecting on judgments of factuality,
moral obligation, and sources of information.